The dream of stargliding endured for a great span before Jan returned to himself, found himself once more in the night-dark sea. For hours, it seemed, he could do little more than lie exhausted against the slick, pliant backs of the unicorns-of-the-sea. They were mostly dark grey, though a few were silvery with great black spots. Across from him, Ryhenna slept peacefully, sprawled across the shifting backs of the obliging sea-unicorns. Much of the cloud cover above him had blown off now, and Jan was able to see stars. The few ragged, scudding clouds that remained threatened no rain. The breeze had turned unexpectedly, mercifully warm.
Not all their rescuers possessed the tusk-horn, Jan noted after a time. Only about half did, most of whom appeared to be the larger males—and yet, among those with the longest, keenest, and most elegant horns swam two that were plainly females with half-grown calves. One of the group even sported a pair of horns, one spiral skewer sprouting from each side of the jaw. The group’s leader was evidently the beautifully tusked young male who had broken the surface first. In the beginning, he only clicked and whistled at Jan, but presently switched to the common tongue of unicorns and daya.
“Among my folk,” he began, “I am known as A’a’a’….” A string of crackling squeals followed, baffling Jan’s ears. The sea creature tossed his head, flipping a shower of spray. “But I realize this designation is difficult for your kind.”
The young male swam alongside, bright-eyed, smiling. The dark unicorn could not escape the impression that he was being politely laughed at.
“You may therefore call me A’a.”
Despite his bone-wearying fatigue, Jan managed a bow. “A’a,” he began, “I am called Aljan. My companion is Ryhenna. We are both deeply grateful for your aid. But I have never seen or heard tell of your kind before. What are your people called?”
“We are narwhals,” A’a replied: “Moonspawn, blessed of the Great Mother. We are on our spring voyage east along the silver coast to our calving grounds off the Birdcat Mountains.”
Birdcat Mountains. Jan grew suddenly more alert. Might such be the name of the Gryphon Mountains among A’a’s people? The dark unicorn felt his whole body quiver. If the unicorns-of-the-sea knew of the Gryphon Mountains, then surely they knew of the Singing Cliffs where the seaherons nested, from which he could easily find his way back to the Vale.
“We sing to one another constantly beneath the waves,” A’a continued. “My pod was closest to you when our dreamers harkened Red-One’s hail entreating your rescue.”
Red-One? Jan blinked. All the narwhals in his view were dark silver, mottled grey, or black. “Who is Red-One?” he asked. “Is that one among you now?”
A shower of staccato clicks marked A’a’s laughter. “Nay. She is of your kind,” he replied, “though once, like your companion, she lacked a horn. Years ago, we aided her flight from the two-footed boat-builders. We curse their kind! They kill us when they can—though we have never offered them the slightest harm. They steal our tusks and dappled skins, our rich fat and strong, supple bones. They would harness us as they do their hapless daya, we think, could they but devise a means.”
A storm of angry crackles and squeals came from A’a’s fellows, evidently signaling agreement.
“Where does this red mare live?” the dark prince asked as the tumult subsided.
“Inland,” A’a replied. “She visits us from time to time, coming down to the golden shore in spring when we are passing by. Sometimes she travels with us a while. We tell her of all the realms undersea that we have visited, and she speaks of the drylands she has seen. Several of us have learned her tongue, and she speaks our own tongue a little, too.”
The swells rolled dark and warm around them.
“You are fortunate, O friend of our great friend,” the sleek sea-rover added, “to have such an ally to intercede on your behalf.”
Jan lay silent a moment, thoroughly confused. A hornless da mare, having escaped the two-foots, now living as a unicorn? Surely he could not have heard the other right.
“You say this mare once lacked a horn…?” he began. The narwhal leader clacked and nodded. “Drinking from a sacred pool guarded by white poisontails transformed her,” he replied. “A horn now grows upon her brow.”
The dark unicorn snorted, shook his head, still utterly perplexed. Could A’a be referring to the sacred wellspring of the moon, Jan wondered, deep in wyvern country?
“But how could this Red-One,” he murmured, only half-realizing he was thinking aloud, “many miles inland, know of our plight—and send you word?”
The black narwhal laughed. “Red-One glides through our dreams,” he answered. “Her spells conjured the storm that raised the sea above the rocks and enabled your escape from the stinking boat-makers. It was surely a mighty leap to fling her powers so far. We are uneasy for her now, having received no further sending from her these many hours since.”
Jan felt a stab of recognition now. Could Tek’s dam be the one of whom the narwhals spoke? He had known all his life that the Red Mare was a magicker, able to enter dreams and bring weather. He knew she often traveled far from the Vale on mysterious errands never explained. It had been Jah-lila, years past, who had saved him from a wyvern’s sting and hinted at origins far stranger than merely being the offspring of renegade unicorns—outlaws of the Plain—as most of the herd believed.
The sea-unicorns bobbed and whistled. Despite the mildness of the air after the storm, all Jan’s limbs felt suddenly chill. Had Jah-lila once been a da in the city of the two-foots? Could drinking of Alma’s sacred pool deep in wyvern-occupied territory somehow have transformed her? For all its healing powers, could that miraculous well truly change hornless daya into unicorns? The prospect both disturbed and excited him.
“I believe this Red-One of whom you speak is kin to me,” he said to A’a, “being mother to my mate.”
The narwhal leader reared back, startled, his speech degenerating into a series of squeals and staccato raps, by which, Jan supposed, he transmitted this news to his fellows. The dark prince nearly slid from the backs of his rescuers as other narwhals joined in their leader’s gleeful dither, jostling and chattering.
Across from him, Ryhenna’s supporters seemed to contain themselves better than their podmates, so that the sleeping mare only stirred, but did not wake. Eventually, to Jan’s relief, A’a calmed himself and restored order with a barrage of deep, rapid snaps and bursts of rising notes. As the narwhals quieted, their leader once more resumed the unicorn tongue.
“We were unaware of your kinship to Red-One,” the narwhal replied. “This news pleases us very well.”
“I seek to return to my home,” Jan told him urgently, “and I would bring my companion Ryhenna with me, but I do not know the way….”
“Do not fear,” A’a replied. “You need only travel east along the silver shore to reach the whistling steeps and the golden sands where the blue skimmers flock. From there, you and your companion will be able to find your way inland, will you not?”
Whistling steeps, golden sands, blue skimmers. Quickly, Jan grasped the most likely translations: Singing Cliffs, the shores of the Summer Sea, and the dust-blue herons.
“Aye,” he cried. “We can easily find our way inland from there.”
“Good,” A’a replied. “We are not far from the shallows though you will need to travel many days along the silver strand before you reach the steeps. We should be within sight of the drylands by morning. Until then, sleep, friend Aljan, unicorn of the land, for I see you are as weary as your companion. It is time both of you slept. Rest now till we put you safe ashore.”
24.
Prince’s Get
Dagg felt exposed, vulnerable now that he had passed outside the Vale. Tepid sun and cool spring air seemed almost sultry. Grazing as he went, he trotted through the greening hills, admiring the delicious shoots and young buds bursting everywhere. His long winter pelt, grown ragged now, had yet to shed. He found himself sweating beneath the sh
ag. Gnats and midges swarmed in droves. He swatted at a biting fly on his rump.
He could not believe how quickly the season had changed. The violent storm at equinox, little more than a month gone by, had banished the hard-frozen snows in a single sweep. Dagg shuddered, thinking of the desperate winter past: Jan, gryphon-killed; mad Korr ordering his son’s innocent mate pursued even in her exile beyond the Vale. Then the storm. Common knowledge called Tek’ s dam, to whom she had fled, a magicker. Could the Red Mare truly have conjured the deluge at equinox—and all that had ensued?
Uneasily, Dagg shoved speculation aside. Those tragedies were over—nightmares from which the herd must now awake. He trotted across pathless, rolling hills of mixed forest and meadow. Deep in his breast stirred the fear that had dogged him all winter since Tek’s flight. Had she been able to find her mother, the elusive Red Mare—or had she perished with her unborn in the snows beyond the Vale? Even strengthened as she was by the healer’s herb, her desperate run must have cost her much.
A sharp whistle cut through his troubled musing. The dappled warrior halted dead, his nostrils flared. He cast about him with ears and eyes. He stood in an open meadow beside a narrow ravine, gushing now with spring flood. On the cliffside opposite, a figure moved, partially hidden by trees. His heart lifted suddenly as Tek stepped from the forest’s edge onto the open hillside.
“Ho, Tek!” Dagg shouted, half-rearing. “Well met!”
The pied mare laughed. She seemed surprisingly hale. Dagg himself was only beginning to recover from the privations of the harsh season past. Despite the recent abundance of sprouting shoots and buds, his ribs still showed. Tek, by contrast, looked sleek.
“Come up,” she cried. “I’ll meet you.”
Wheeling, she vanished into the trees. Dagg splashed across the flooded ravine and started up the rocky trail. A thought struck him just as he reached the trees. Though a tall, strapping mare, Tek had always been lean, slim as a filly, without an ounce of spare flesh. So he recalled her from their years in the Vale, and so she had appeared to him on the hillside above only moments before.
A chill bit into Dagg’s breast as he counted the time since the night of courting upon the shores of the Summer Sea. Tek’s pregnancy ought to have been far advanced by now, her unborn progeny not due for close to another moon—yet her slender girth made obvious that she was no longer pregnant. Dagg’s heart fell. She must have lost the foal.
The sound of hoofbeats along the steep trail made him quicken his pace. Through the trees ahead, he glimpsed Tek rounding the bend. She let out a glad whinny and charged him. Dagg braced, laughing, as she shouldered against him, frisking and nipping. He felt like a colt again, dodging the smarting blows of her hooves and fencing her nimble feints of horn. Panting, the two of them subsided at last, Tek tossing the long black-and-rose strands of mane from her eyes. Dagg marveled at her energy.
“Well, Dagg,” she said, a little breathless. “What brings you?”
“You,” he answered, chafing against her companionably. “How are you?” he asked her. “How fared you this winter past?”
Tek laughed, stepping back. “As you see. I found my dam and sheltered in her grotto. But you, Dagg—” Her voice sobered. “How fared you and those I left behind in the Vale?”
Dagg cast down his eyes. “So many perished,” he answered. “Mainly the old and the very young.”
As he thought of Korr keeping huge assemblies standing in the fierce cold for hours daily, sharing only among his favored Companions the secret of where the best forage lay, the dappled warrior’s voice grew hard.
“Many starved, who need not have starved. Many died of cold who need not have died. By the end of winter, even the most loyal acknowledged Korr must be mad.”
Tek nodded, sobered. “I sorrow to hear of it.”
Dagg stamped, pacing restlessly. “Then the tragedy at equinox. That was the final blow….”
The dappled warrior stopped himself, glancing quickly at Tek. He had not meant to mention that catastrophe so soon, to spoil her first joy at their meeting—especially in view of the obvious loss of her unborn. Now the damage was done: he had let the news slip out. Tek’s eyes narrowed.
“Tragedy?” she asked him. “Tell me of this.”
Dagg scuffed one forehoof. Gnats whined, stinging him. He tossed his mane.
“Come.” Tek fell in beside him and started up the slope. “Tell me as we walk.”
The hillside steepened, its narrow trail threading through tough, spindly trees. Reluctantly, he began.
“After you fled at solstice time, some expressed hope, saying that with ‘the pied wych’ now cast out, Alma must once more smile—hah!” He snorted. “But the weather only worsened. Teki and I did our best to foster belief that it must be your exile the goddess found so displeasing. Most conceded that you had had nothing to do with the death of noble Sa and that fear for your life—not guilty shame—had driven you away. Feelings ran even higher in your favor when it became known you…”
Dagg hastily bit his tongue, reluctant to speak indelicately in view of Tek’s obvious miscarriage.
“That is, when your condition became known,” he muttered awkwardly, risking a glance at Tek.
She seemed unperturbed, serene in fact. Dagg frowned. Few mares he knew to have lost their young accepted their misfortune so blithely. Even moons later, he knew, many still mourned. Yet Tek evidenced no such deep-felt grief. Though sober and attentive, her expression was not stricken.
“Go on,” the pied mare prompted. Puzzled, the young stallion continued.
“The king raged when he learned of your escape. One Companion who had attacked you broke his leg in the fall. Teki could not save him. The other, so they say, barely escaped skewering by the king after his tale of your bungled arrest. What saved him, I think, was his revelation of your—your pregnancy.”
Tek nodded. Abashed, the dappled warrior hurried on.
“The news drove the king into a frenzy. He called your union with Jan unholy, the result of your mother’s sorcery. He called your expected progeny ‘abomination,’ which at all costs must be prevented from birth.”
Again, Dagg stopped himself, appalled at how badly he had put it, wishing he could snatch back the words which had just passed his lips. His hide flushed scarlet beneath heavy winter shag. Yet still Tek’s expression seemed only serious and inward-turned, not anguished. Sadly, she shook her head.
“I cannot understand what the king could have meant. Perhaps no meaning lies in the ravings of the mad. But go on, Dagg. How did the herd respond?”
“Even some of the king’s most ardent supporters acknowledged that he ranted then,” continued Dagg, “but all still feared to defy him. Korr ordered his chosen to pursue you at once. Luckily, none knew whither you had fled. Teki was questioned, of course, but he professed bafflement at any suggestions that he had aided you, and his young acolytes backed him, every one, all swearing that they had not seen you in at least a day. Teki insisted on open questioning, before the assembled herd, not some secret interview.
“All the acolytes were let go. Even the king, calling for the blood of your unborn as he was, seemed reluctant to harm them. So many had died by now that the welfare of these young ones was doubly precious to the herd. As for Teki himself, much grumbling ensued among the king’s loyalists over the pied stallion’s being not only your acknowledged sire, but the mate of a ‘known outlaw and magicker’—but the healer answered that you were a grown and wedded mare, responsible for your own actions now, and had not sheltered in his grotto since summer last.
“He also reminded all present that he had not shared a cave with your mother, Jah-lila, since before you were born and could scarcely be held accountable for any actions of a mare who chose to live outside the protection of the Vale and its Ring of Law. And when, he asked, had the Red Mare been adjudged an outlaw? She had never stood before Council or king facing charges for any crime. Strange she might be, a foreigner—but not crimina
l.
“He further called on all to witness his own long and loyal service to the king. Korr could not very well touch him then. Besides, he and everybody else knew that until his acolytes complete their training—years hence—the pied stallion remains the Vale’s only healer. The very survival of many present might well hang upon his skill that winter. At last Korr let him go, but the king vowed that as soon as the weather broke, he would dispatch his Companions to hunt you down wherever you might be hiding, even beyond the Vale, if need be.”
“And you?” Tek pressed, brow furrowed with concern.” All this you must have heard at second account. Was your absence marked? I lost track of you that night, in the snow. You fell behind….”
Dagg shook his head. “Nay. When I limped home late the following day, I told my sire and dam I had been caught in the storm and wandered for hours, lost, before spending the night huddled in a small, deserted cave: not far from the truth. If they did not believe me, they said nothing to Korr. Blood ties, it seems, still bind them stronger than fealty to a king.
“All the herd attended the grey mare’s funeral, despite the cold. Their grief was unbounded. The loss of Sa seemed to burn in the minds of many as a symbol of all that the herd had lost. Few save his Companions paid heed to Korr’s words that day: no outbursts, no open rebellion, but a persistent, sullen, smoldering resentment against the king. Cold and starving, the unicorns were growing weary of being bitten and kicked. Attendance at Korr’s rallies fell off sharply after that. We needed all our time and energy just to scout for forage. Most simply did not heed the summons of the king’s Companions anymore.
“That pricked him. He dispatched his pack to comb the valley for you as soon as Sa’s funeral rites were done. When they could not find you, the king had little doubt you had fled to your mother’s haunts in the southeastern hills—though Teki and I kept rumors flying of your having hidden deep in the Pan Woods, or even run away wild renegade onto the Plain.
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